Tag Archives: Manuel C. Briones

Since the Philippines is now witnessing a world full of turbulence and incertitude, trudging on a road leading almost to hopelessness (and quite possibly another world war), it is high time that we Filipinos should wake up and face the facts, and to discern the real cause behind all this farce and evil.

We Filipinos were stripped of our national identity upon the arrival here of our so-called liberators: the North Americans, particularly the Thomasites. From that time on, the Republic of the Philippines (the Anglicized translation of La República de Filipinas) has never been the same again. Everything that is Filipino was literally mangled, especially during the 1945 massacre of Manila courtesy of the Yankee soldiers (see WARSAW OF ASIA: THE RAPE OF MANILA by José Mª Bonifacio Escoda). Therefore, before anything of the same tragedy happens again, we better arm ourselves with the powers of historical research and delve into the truth amidst all the lies taught to us by some “idiotcators.” Remember that the past is our gateway to the future.

The Filipino identity is the product of the Filipino State that began to exist in Spanish on 24 June 1571. The Filipino State was founded together with Manila on that same date, with the government having Spanish as its official language (THE FILIPINO STATE by Gómez Rivera as published in emanila.com).

In 1599, the previously existing native ethnic states went into the Filipino State as co-founding members. They incorporated themselves with the Filipino State when they elected the Spanish King (Rey Felipe II) as their natural sovereign (page 23 of THE HISPANIZATION OF THE PHILIPPINES by John Leddy Phelan, University of Winsconsin Press, USA, 1959). This election was verified during a synod-plebiscite held also that year.

From that time on, and after forming part of the 1571 Filipino State, our pre-Hispanic ancestors also accepted Spanish as their official and national language with their respective native languages as auxiliary official languages. Thus, the previously autonomous Ethnic States that existed before 1599 were respectively the ones that belonged to the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Pampangueños, Bicolanos, Visayans, Mindanáo Lumads, and the Moro Sultanates of Joló and Maguindanáo.

Aside from these indigenous or native Ethnic States, the pre-Hispanic Chinese of Mayi-in-ila Kung shing-fu, or what is now known as Manila, likewise joined the Filipino State when they accepted the King of Spain as their natural sovereign. More so, because they knew that they would become the chief benefactors of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade that would in turn last for 215 years.

Hence, all of the above mentioned people became, ethnographically and politically, Filipinos as well as Spanish citizens or subjects when they freely accepted the Spanish King (Rey Felipe or King Philip II) as their natural sovereign in 1599, resided in the Philippines to do business, and paid taxes to His Majesty’s Manila government. It is because of this historical event that the Spanish language is an inseparable part of every Filipino’s individual, collective, and national identity. Because of this fact, Philippine education today, to be truly Filipino, must have Spanish as its medium of instruction as was the case before the Americans came, since without a notion of this language no Filipino can say that he is truly Filipino in his identity (Caviteños and Zamboangueños should, and can, start with their own Chabacano vernacular).

This is why a nationalist of the stature of Claro M. Recto declared that: “Without Spanish the inventory of our national patrimony as a people will be destroyed, if not taken away from us since Spanish is part of our flesh and blood as Filipinos.”

Teodoro M. Kálaw, another great Filipino, also said that: “The Filipino national identity, as well as what we know and recognize as Filipino culture, remains primarily articulated and manifested in Spanish because this is its original language. The Filipino Civilization is a beautiful blending of the Spanish and the indigenous civilizations. Without Spanish and its beneficial influence, we betray our own rights to dignity as a people and stop being Filipinos in order to sadly become economic slaves of another power.”

It is therefore a very condemnable crime against the Filipino people, in the words of Cebuano Senator Manuel C. Briones, to educate the new generations of Filipinos without any Spanish as, at least, one more subject in their curricula.

“More so,” added then Senator Manuel C. Briones, “because Spanish is also a world language!” And this is totally true because, at this writing, Spanish has around five hundred million primary speakers and another seven hundred million people as second-language speakers.

Should present-day Filipinos be left-out?

However, that is not the complete point. The main argument is that we Filipinos, before joining the battlefield against imperialism/neocolonialism, should very well know who the real enemy is. Moreover, we should realize that whenever we throw punches at the enemy, the only ones who we hit are ourselves due to the ignorance that we have about who we are and what we were. Our language, our culture, as well as our history and identity, were all distorted (this can be observed through the fiery writings of Recto, Kálaw, Briones, Jesús Lava, Renato Constantino, and even Nick Joaquín, regarding this matter; among those mentioned, perhaps it is Recto who divulged the most scathing truth on the agenda of the Americans and what they did to our country).

Even national hero José Rizal can be considered as an American-invented hero in some sense (see VENERATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING by Constantino). This is not to say that Rizal’s heroism was horseplay. Rizal was an ardent nationalist, a great writer and scholar, bar-none. He has every right to be our national hero for he instilled in his followers the importance of nationalism and national identity. However, the American regime managed to distort everything about him, and even used his tussle with the Spanish government in the Philippines when in truth, Rizal, who was a Freemason, was solely against the Spanish friars particularly the Dominicans who ordered the expulsion of his family, together with other Calambeños, from Calambâ, Laguna due to a land dispute.

The scheme of using Rizal’s “hatred” (kunô) against Spain was taught in all the schools, public and private, from pre-school up to college, little by little conditioning the minds of young Filipinos into accepting the absurd notion that the real villains were the Spaniards and that our saviors were the Americans. This alarming lie being done in our school systems still exist, quite obviously.

So now that it is made clear what a Filipino is, perhaps the question should be rephrased: should present-day Filipinos remain unconcerned about what those foreign oppressors did to us and are still doing to us?

circa 2001

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GUILLERMO GÓMEZ y RIVERA — is a Filipino writer, journalist, poet, playwright, historian, linguist, polyglot, and scholar of Spanish and British descent. He was appointed Secretary of the Committee on National Language for the 1970-1971 Constitutional Convention. In 1974, the Department of Education condecorated him for his work as teacher and writer with the Plus Ultra Filipinas Award. In 1975, he was awarded the Premio Zóbel, the oldest literary award in the Philippines. And if I go on, this profile of Señor Gómez would have outworded the foregoing essay. :DJOSÉ MARIO “Pepe” ALAS — is just an ordinary blogger with simple dreams but higher hopes. :-)